150 years after U.S. emancipation, slavery isn’t over

This January marked not only the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation, but also the third annual National Slavery & Human Trafficking Prevention Month. The presidential proclamation began in 2011 as a way for the administration and human rights groups to raise awareness of what President Obama has called “a crime that amounts to modern-day slavery.”

Trafficking comes in many different forms and its victims are men or women, adults or children. Popular media’s depictions of trafficking most frequently depict women in the sex trade, as in the films Taken and Taken 2, Russian strippers in the most recent season of Showtime’s Dexter, and numerous cases featured in the 14 seasons of Law and Order: Special Victims Unit.

Ambassador CdeBaca spoke Monday in New York at the launch of VSconfronts.org, a digital platform for anti-trafficking organizations and advocates to work together to combat trafficking. CdeBaca emphasized that trafficking happens everywhere:

“It is the maid who studies the Indonesian-English dictionary every night so she can write a note and throw it over the fence… It is the man who joins a fishing boat for the promise of work and decent wages, but is forced to work 20 hours a day, beaten, and raped so you can buy white fish and squid at Whole Foods… it is the young girl who is told by a man, ‘I’ll help you become a model’ or even just, ‘I love you.’”

Safe houses contend with problems housing victims of different kinds of trafficking: For example, women who have been sexually exploited cannot be housed with men who are victims of forced labor. The same occurs when working with children in safe houses who need to be distanced from adults following abuse.

Each type of slavery also brings specific attendant health problems; forced laborers tend to have untreated physical injuries, while sex workers are much more likely to simultaneously be dealing with STDs and drug addiction.

VSconfronts.org is just one way to raise awareness and is working to offer a bottom-up approach to legislation and reforms, something congress took a step away from when it failed to reauthorize the Trafficking Victims Protection Reuathorization Act in 2012. While the law has remained on the books since it expired in September 2011, Congress is not compelled to fund any of TVPA’s programs, resources, or task forces. Once again, our government has ignored the voices of those in bondage.